World Furniture Vs Ikea

widest range of consumers as possible. In recent years, both brands too, have added the obligatory environmental rhetoric to their progressive social ideals and portfolio. However, notably for IKEA, the emphasis on extremely low-cost products means their products are perceived to not have any lasting value, “the absolute opposite of heirlooms” (Hartman, 2007), also viewed as ultimately - disposable furniture.

Perhaps a more efficient way to understand how cultures work, is by studying history. “History repeats itself” is apropos when discussing design trends. Trends go in and out of style very quickly, and in repeated patterns and cycles but the basis in general has a historical reference.

This quote taken from the book World Furniture represents

In addition to that, the advertisements, catalogues and MUJI’s retail stores confirms to the brand’s aesthetic ideal through the use of their raw materials, minimalist aesthetic and meticulous layout of everyday objects. Their brand success can be credited to MUJI’s design team across various disciplines that had a hand in managing the delicate balancing act of maintaining both a distinctive, designer aura and an everyday, useful. As Holloway and Hones argue: “essential to the presentation and identification of the Muji brand is the existence of a set of display spaces that share a unified aesthetic, in which the border between the shop-floor space and catalogue space is relatively unmarked” (Holloway and Hones, 2007). Like the Habitat’s designer lifestyle in the 1960s, MUJI’s lifestyle ideals are expressed altogether in a seamless aesthetic

IKEA’s stores are not simply furniture showrooms but have grown to become complete destinations which includes restaurants and childcare facilities creating a welcoming interactive retail experience which hopes to embody our ideal home where else a MUJI store aims to affirm the ideal of a compact, organised aspect of an orderly lifestyle.

This emphasis on image is crucial to both IKEA and MUJI, and is certainly important in suppressing further thought about the origins of their products and the purpose of their designer experiences. The systems and processes at work behind the scenes remain obscured by the disciplining action of aesthetic ordering. Despite their differences, IKEA and MUJI are founded on images of an ideal life of unified perfection, a coherent lifestyle aesthetic that functions to allay contemporary working class anxieties surrounding order, cleanliness, and purity.

In conclusion of the comparative case study between MUJI and IKEA, both of them in the same field and yet from different cultural backgrounds, uses their countries’ local culture as a niche to market themselves in the global society